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BY HERBERT VEGO
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IF YOU have relatives abroad, you must have heard or read them reporting about how ugly the image of the Philippine government has become because of “extrajudicial killings” committed in the name of “war on drugs”. It’s as if the Philippines has become the most “shabulized” nation in the world. It’s as if drug addiction were our biggest problem.
Forbes.com, on the other hand, argues that the bigger one looming on the horizon could be our subservience to China. It’s in the article “New Philippine Debt of $167 Billion Could Balloon To $452 Billion” by author Anders Corr.
Opinionating on Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno’s announcement that some US$167 billion would be spent on infrastructure during Duterte’s six-year term, Corr said, “That could increase current Philippine national government debt of approximately $123 billion, to $290 billion. But that does not include interest. High rates of interest that China, the most likely lender, could impose on the new debt could balloon it to over a trillion U.S. dollars in 10 years.”
The “Build Build Build” slogan of the so-called Dutertenomics could place the Philippines under virtual debt bondage to China if allowed to proceed.
How then could dependence on China be synonymous with the “independent foreign policy” that President Rodrigo Duterte boasts of?
If there are people who could benefit from the Chinese connection, Forbes writer Corr pointed to “Duterte and his influential friends and business associates who could each benefit with hundreds of millions of dollars in finder’s fees.”
If that is the hidden reason why the President also boasts of his refusal to accept the grant of 250 million euros (P13.85 billion) from the European Union, I am afraid he would be aggravating, rather than solving, the illegal drug trade.
Let us not forget that the alleged biggest drug lord in the Philippines, Peter Lim, is still at large. If he is the same Peter Lim who met with his kumpare Digong Duterte in July 2016, then we know why the long arm of the law is not long enough to get him. If, as rumored, he heads a sub-group of one of the drug syndicates comprising the Chinese Triad, then all this “war on drugs” would eventually emerge as a farce.
Years before Duterte came to power, five Triad groups were reported to be operating in the Philippines, namely the Big Circle Gang, United Bamboo Gang, 14K Gang, Ghost Shadows and San Yee on. They laundered drug money abroad through the shadowy “Binondo Central Bank.”
The present Triad big bosses – based in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau – are believed to be the organizers of large-scale drug trafficking from mainland China.
Remember how the presence of the Chinese Triad in the Philippines blew off in September 1992? It did with the discovery of 20 kilos of shabu wrapped in an air parcel package at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Police operatives eventually arrested the package recipient named Mary Ong.
Years later, an alleged Chinese-Filipino drug lord known as Fred Tiongco was arrested in Hong Kong. Whether true or false, Senator Tito Sotto broke into the front pages as Fred’s “friend”.
We no longer read about Mary Ong and Fred Tiongco these days. Sotto was recently in the news, yes, but it’s for calling Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo “na-ano lang.”
The same senator, ironically, is reputedly also on the warpath against illegal drugs; hence, an advocate kuno of death penalty for drug dealers.
Sad, but as the saying goes, “We deserve the leaders we elect.” (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
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